"The book industry is gonna get Napstered..."

[Sonist]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

...
Certain other media and commercial organizations have demonstrated that this concept can be workable and acceptable to the majority of people,...

... you must be thinking of the music industry, right...?

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

... The better the incentives are, the less obtrusive DRM can be used, and the more acceptable it can be to all concerned....

I am not sure you get it.

DRM does not increase sales, and it does not save obsolete business models. It only pi$$es off consumers, and creates "pirates." And like with pregnancy, you either have it, or you don't.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

....

DRM is designed to allow certain kinds of use of content, while restricting others.

.....

That's the immoral part of it.
It's like I sell you an house keeping the living room closed and having laws to prevent you to enter it, unless I give you a special permission...

Right now you are fighting against the ones offering a better and cheaper service than yours with restricting laws. It has never worked in the long term.

Like I said, I'd like to pay you for your books, and dealing myself with my files.
It will be impossible until the majority of involved people will see the difference.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Remember, it doesn't have to be 100% perfect.

That rather depends on what you want to protect against. If you want to stop your content appearing on the internet for anyone to download, in a torrent or otherwise, you need it to be 100%.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It only has to make it more trouble than it is worth to break, for the majority of people (IOW, easier to just buy).

I believe this might be at the root of your misunderstanding. When we talk about DRM schemes having been 'broken', we don't mean that the encryption can be removed by anyone. It can still only be removed by the person in possession of the key to the encryption - i.e. the person who bought the content in the first place.

It is because the person who bought the content /must/ also have the key to the encryption that DRM can never be effective for the purpose of preventing the content ever appearing in torrents.

What it can do is prevent people from using their content as they wish (unless they remove it). DRM only inconveniences people who have actually bought the content.

For those not willing or unable to remove the DRM, and who don't download a cracked copy, it may well stop them reading their content in the future, and it may well stop them recommending it to friends. "I've just read this great new book" "Can you loan it to me" "No, it's an ebook with DRM".

Inconveniencing customers and limiting word of mouth recommendations. Yes, DRM has a lot going for it. :-)

[anappo]

To: Steve Jordan

> that's a camera being used to photograph an ebook on a bookreader

Also note that this sort of cute apparatus is only required if the e-book reader is completely closed proprietary system (that no-one has broken into yet).

The device on the photo is CyBook 3 - which means the DRM being circumvented is mobi prc. This format is also viewable on desktop platforms. This means that your content resides in open, easily programmable environment.

It would be reasonably trivial to:
1. Open a DRM-ed file in mobi viewer on your windows machine
2. Take a screenshot of a page area of the viewer.
3. OCR it into plain text.
4. Send "next page" keyboard event to the viewer.
5. Repeat until last two pages are identical.

The capital reason why all this is not routinely done to every e-book in mobi prc format is of course because the mobi DRM can be far more easily removed by application of some very nice python scripts.

You wan't some security - I hear you. Should such a system emerge - it would necessarily be so different from any conceivable copy protection scheme that it would make no sense to call it DRM.

For now.. you're a writer, right? Do what Michael Crichton did. In Next, one of his characters, a child molester, was named after some The New Republic editor who gave him bad reviews. So, start taking names of notorious pirates

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Kirtai

I'm well aware of what DRM is meant to do, I'm just saying it doesn't work...

And I keep saying, it doesn't have to be 100% perfect to be effective. It only has to be more trouble than it is worth to break, and worth is dictated by incentives to willingly buy the product. That's the way all successful security systems work, and even e-book DRM could work that way once the proper balance of incentives and DRM are found.

This is a point that many of you are missing: If the customer is willing to buy, they will ignore the torrents and file-share sites, making bootleg copies irrelevant (as many of you often insist they are anyway).

Originally Posted by anappo

It would be reasonably trivial to:
1. Open a DRM-ed file in mobi viewer on your windows machine
2. Take a screenshot of a page area of the viewer.
3. OCR it into plain text.
4. Send "next page" keyboard event to the viewer.
5. Repeat until last two pages are identical.

Sure. And if it's even less trivial to buy the e-book, who's going to go through all that?

Originally Posted by Kirtai

Bear in mind I have no objection to artists being paid, indeed one of my earlier posts was asking you what you thought about a fixed fee for access to your works. I'm simply stating that naive technical restrictions are not the solution and legal ones are even worse.

That's true, I never did answer that question. (That's what happens when you get too caught up in all this DRM screaming.) Paying up front may work for some models, like magazines, or even for a publisher that knows it will release X number of novels per year. But for a single author, I'm not so sure. I would consider it wrong to do that to my customers, since I cannot predict my future output (neither my rate of writing, or your satisfaction with the subject matter... not all of my books are similar in style).

I would sooner lower the price on my books, or add some bonus content to them, as an incentive to buy, than to ask for money for books before I've even thought of them.

[anappo]

> 1: The availability and ease of use of torrent programs
> reducing the barrier to doing so.

I have not -ever- heard of one single complaint about availability or usability of torrent clients. Have you?

> 2: The attitude that everyone should have free and unlimited access to all digital media

Almost right. The attitude thats gaining (with a good reason too) is this:

"everyone should have unlimited access to all digital media".

Do you disagree that this would be colossally good thing to have? The "free" part is inessential. Right now its not even a noticable problem. In future? Maybe. This education you talk about could work. Or a "copyright tax" or subscriptions. For now you can't even test whether any of the fixes would work because the problem they are supposed to fix are not here yet.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by anappo

I have not -ever- heard of one single complaint about availability or usability of torrent clients. Have you?

I've heard plenty of complaints about the lousy quality of torrent material, though. Superior quality from the creator/publisher is another incentive to buy, and ignore the torrent sites.

[pdurrant]

Yes. Exactly. Make the authorised editions easy to find, good quality and reasonably priced.

That's the way to lead to sales rather than bootleg downloads. Not DRM.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

I've heard plenty of complaints about the lousy quality of torrent material, though. Superior quality from the creator/publisher is another incentive to buy, and ignore the torrent sites.

[Jaime_Astorga]

Originally Posted by anappo

> 1: The availability and ease of use of torrent programs
> reducing the barrier to doing so.

I have not -ever- heard of one single complaint about availability or usability of torrent clients. Have you?

Playing devil's advocate here, torrents can be a bit arcane if you are not used to them. It took me a while to "get" them, and I consider myself a technology inclined person; the idea that I had to download a torrent file which would then be used by the client to download the actual file from other people didn't click at first. This might not be a problem now that e-books and e-readers are a relatively niche market of technologically savvy people, but as they become more prevalent due to cheapness, older people dying off, and other factors, it could end up being something to consider.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And I keep saying, it doesn't have to be 100% perfect to be effective. It only has to be more trouble than it is worth to break, and worth is dictated by incentives to willingly buy the product. That's the way all successful security systems work, and even e-book DRM could work that way once the proper balance of incentives and DRM are found.

I do not get this. You have to buy the book to break the DRM. Then you can distribute a DRM free copy. So it is as was pointed out above enough that one person buy the book and break the DRM for it to be available to download.

Were would you get a DRM:ed copy if you did not buy it? You might get it from a friend but why would you want to get this copy instead of downloading a DRM free copy?

[PKFFW]

Probably shouldn't bother but...........

Originally Posted by anappo

I have not -ever- heard of one single complaint about availability or usability of torrent clients. Have you?

Yes I have, many times. Believe it or not there are many many many many people, even in developed countries, that are not technologically savvy and find it difficult learning how to use computers, new programs etc. More specifically, I have heard numerous complaints about previous versions of uTorrent, Azureus and other torrent clients. Personally, I first used torrents via the Opera web browser when it added a torrent client only a couple of years ago and I've been using computers my whole life. My browsing speed went to shit, I found it very difficult to use and overall was left wondering why people thought "torrenting" was just so amazing. Had I not had a friend who knew more about it than me I would have given the whole thing away thinking it was a waste of time.

Originally Posted by anappo

Almost right. The attitude thats gaining (with a good reason too) is this:

"everyone should have unlimited access to all digital media".

Incorrect, in my opinion. The attitude that is gaining acceptence is what I stated. That is, "everyone should have free and unlimited access to all digital media because digial media has zero value."

Originally Posted by anappo

Do you disagree that this would be colossally good thing to have?

Totally agree it would be fantastic.

So would being able to fly anywhere in the world free of charge. So would being given 1 million dollars. So would be marrying a super model who wanted to have sex with me all day and give me lots of money to spend on whatever I want.

There are lots of things that would be totally awesome. Personally I don't that it being "colossally good" for me personally automatically means that it should happen.

Originally Posted by anappo

The "free" part is inessential. Right now its not even a noticable problem. In future? Maybe. This education you talk about could work. Or a "copyright tax" or subscriptions. For now you can't even test whether any of the fixes would work because the problem they are supposed to fix are not here yet.

Actually the problem is here, it's just that in your opinion the problem isn't of big enough proportions to worry about. Personally I would tend to agree but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem at all.

Cheers,
PKFFW

[anappo]

> I've heard plenty of complaints about the lousy quality of
> torrent material, though.

Quite true. Hey, there's your working DRM - inability of downloaders to learn regular expressions!

> might not be a problem now that e-books and e-readers are a
> relatively niche market of relatively technologically savvy
> people, but as they become more prevalent due to cheapness

Mmm.. no. The chief drivers behind people's torrent skillz have been music, pornography, software and movies. How likely is that the first contact with filesharing for anyone was something related to books? As to filesharing moving to higher age echelons, my napkin math tells me we are currently seeing slightly less than half of max growth potential. Assuming that eventually it will spread to everyone between ages 15 and 80. So that would make max potential harm from filesharing to about twice as bad as it is now.

Wait.. Porn! Pornsites are commercial, right? Do -they- use DRM?

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And I keep saying, it doesn't have to be 100% perfect to be effective.

Yes, it does!

This is exactly the problem. It only takes one, single person to obtain a (possibly legal) copy, break the DRM and distribute it for it to be available DRM free to anyone who wants it. Or worse, simply break the DRM full stop.

There are people who will break DRM simply for the personal or technical challenge or even as a point of principle, always assuming they don't do it simply in order to use the content on their choice of hardware.

This is a point that many of you are missing: If the customer is willing to buy, they will ignore the torrents and file-share sites, making bootleg copies irrelevant (as many of you often insist they are anyway).

You're forgetting that legitimate customers can have good reason to break DRM.

Consider, for example, all those people own a Sony reader but who want to buy a book only available in DRMd mobi or lit format. These people can be willing to buy and use the books in a perfectly acceptable manner, but they still need to strip the DRM in order to format shift for their hardware.

For those legitimate customers who want to pay but who can't break the DRM, their choice is either get a bootleg copy or just not buy it. Of course, they may buy a legal copy and download a bootleg to actually read but that rather defeats the point of DRM. And again, these are legitimate customers who want to give you money.

Remember, the DVD CSS protection was broken by people who only wanted to play their legal DVDs on their Linux computers. Even today, there is no legal way to play a legally purchased DVD with DRM on a Unix machine. The same goes for LIT and, I believe Mobipocket.

[anappo]

> Yes I have, many times.

Utter disbelief. Your average text editor has order of magnitude more confusing UI features than your torrent client.. But doesn't matter - as mr. Jordan said - the quality (time and skill investment required to reformat bootleg copies) is more deterring than inability to use a torrent client.

> marrying a super model who wanted to have sex with me all day

For your sake let's hope then that we develop easy method for copying and distribution of supermodels. For digital content exactly that has happened - don't be so envious!

> "everyone should have free and unlimited access to
> all digital media because digial media has zero value."

Well, you made it impossible to provide argumentation to you why the above is nonsense, by dismissing the basis for those arguments as "mere semantics". Which is quite absurd because the cure you suggested for these attitudes was education - which is basically convincing people of something. How do you propose doing that without proper regard to semantics? Brute force? Propaganda? Hypnosis?

Take this thread here - people were going bananas over whether infringement is thievery or harrassment or "badcrime". Then one clever semanticist amongst us came up with "bootlegging"! And behold - everyone is happy now, almost hugging and stuff.

> Personally I would tend to agree but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem at all.

Ok, so we agree it's a small problem. Let's also agree that it -could- get worse in the future. Can you estimate, how much worse must it get in the future for it to be worth obsessing about now?

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by anappo

.....

You wan't some security - I hear you. Should such a system emerge - it would necessarily be so different from any conceivable copy protection scheme that it would make no sense to call it DRM.

......

It's still DRM, but it'll be effective when it won't try do deal with "copy" any longer. Or when there will be a cop in every house.

A DRM schema which manages the right of the authors to be paid without prevent "copying" of the files is possible.
A DRM which makes impossibile to "copy" books, is not.